Now the War in Iraq is Like Battling Nazis and Communists

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Bush is going to hold a contest next month called "You Get to Pick what We're Going to Call the Enemy in Iraq!" end sarcastic mini-rant.

Yet a new tactic for the administration. Or at least a new name for the people we are fighting in Iraq. First they were al-Queda. Then they were simply terrorists. They went on to be insurgents - you know, "just a few dead-enders" as Rumsfield would say while "the insurgency is in it's last throes" as Cheney would say. Then we breifly moved on to Islamic fascists. Unfortunately, the average American didn't know what the heck an Islamic fascist was, so that term had to go. Now he likens the war in Iraq to the fight against Nazis and Communists.

Of course, everyone knows about Nazis and Communists. Some of them were even really bad people. I guess Bush is banking on people not realizing that he's just using different words to describe the exact same group of people we were fighting 3 years ago.

Of course, this is the part that really got me:

Can someone please stop the madness? A majority of Americans now agree that the War in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with the overall War on Terror. At least, it wasn't until we invaded Iraq. At the very least, most Americans will agree that the people fighting against the U.S. in Iraq are not in direct cahoots with those in al-Queda who plotted the WTC attacks, nor the Hezbollah millitants who kidnapped the Israeli soldiers, nor the more recent attempts on the Britain to US flights. Some days, just listening to him makes my brain hurt. Yet Bush continues to assert the connection.

While somewhat (in the first post of my own thread no less), I'm getting a little annoyed by even referencing the fight as the "War on Terrorism". Terrorism isn't something that you can wage a war on. It's not a state that you can overcome with military might or overawe them into submission. Terrorism is a tactic, a means of fighting a war. Terrorism in and of itself is not the enemy. Heck, it's not like there's some database of terrorists out there that every single malcontent registers into so you know when you win.

Finally, I am disgusted by the false choice the admininstration presents to the American public. Listening to Bush, you would assume that there are exactly two options on the table - you either "stay the course" or you "cut and run". As if there are not a range of options between those two extremes. It's just sickening.

 

Careful Aldeth...you stretch this far and you might pull a muscle .

The association to Nazis and Communists is because he was speaking to a veteran group and his exact words ran as follows...

Further, he only tried to connect the Iraqi insurgency, WTC terrorists, Hezbollah et al in an idealological manner.

I read the article and found no real fodder to criticize him for. Well...maybe one thing...timing these speeches to coincide with the September 11 anniversary is mega cheesey...but thats also politics.

 

True enough, although I fail to see how terrorist groups relate well to Nazis and Communists. Or is this playing the fear card again? We should be afraid that the terrorists will come over here and attack us if the Dems win enough seats to take over either the House or Senate? To me it seems strange that you will equate a group of people bent on world domination and totalitarian rule to another group with no central leadership, and which the results of their actions produce a state of chaos and anarchy.

Now who's stretching? By placing all of them in the same context, the logical interpretation here is to draw a comparison that goes beyond ideologue. All I've heard for the past 5 years is the War on Terror. Placing all these events into this context makes it sound like all of these actions encompass different parts of the same War on Terror, and that's the logical conclusion anyone listening to his speech would come to.

And if he put it that way, it would sound much more reasonable. Actually, I must concede this point, if that's what he actually meant. I had not considered this interpretation, although I have some doubts if that was truly the administration's message here.

 

I think managing to wring any coherency out of him at all is an achievement. Example:

And I agree with Aldeth. People are starting to doubt the war, so Bush is trying to make people associate all of these groups with the archetypal Enemies of America- Nazis and Commies. Well, if they're like Nazis and Communists, we should definitely be fighting them! Right, guys?

 

Perhaps they are freedomfighters after all.

 

If you label sides "black" and "white", which is what he does all the time, it just becomes a whole lot easier to get people to support your cause.

 

I think it is towards the low-middle educated part of the US. No educated and intelligent people will believe "The country of freedom is against evil men again" lie. I think he sees the world as a Captain America cartoon or something similar. If he had some intelligence, he would realize it. It is for the people thinking like that .

 

Hippies and Nazis and Communists, oh my!

 

I can't see anything wrong with the connections he's making. Both the Nazis and many Communist governments ran systems of 'purging' to remove those who were not Nazi or Communist enough within their own countries. The Islamic Terrorists (or whatever you damn well want to call them, something that's easier than saying "Those-utter-nutjobs-who-target-and-slaughter-civilians-
and-claim-their-actions-are-justified-by-their-religion-that-happens-to-be-Islam") are very similar in that they are trying to purge the world of those who do not agree/think as they do.

There are similarities and he's trying to convince the people of the USA that they're trying to stop and protect people from some nutjobs who enjoy bombing aeroplanes, subways, embassies and kidnapping civilians etc. and there is no label for such people besides terrorist yet they're currently hunting a specific type of terrorist.

[ September 02, 2006, 00:58: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

It explains those terrorists very well. By doing that, they make themselves as pitiful, worthless and *****(so many other things) as Bush and his men. But Bush tries to show US as white and terrorists as black. But they are the same dark grey( maybe Bush is darker).

[ September 02, 2006, 01:20: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Did the "west" defeat communism and Nazism or does those ideologys still exist? In this matter it's more important what ideology they belong to than who they are, not like Hitler and the nazi.

So history tells us that we won't win in atleast 100 years.

 

Nazism was defeated the moment Hitler killed himself. Todays nazis are a joke, a movement that needs the underground to communicate.

Communism doesn't need to be defeated, in time it defeats itself, because it simply won't work. But just to refresh some memories...the west did indeed defeat communism, the USSR no longer exists.

 

Any friends of McCarthyism here? The resemblance with the witch-hunt of the fifties is stunning.

They really are fighting against terrorism like they were fighting against communism. People dissapearing into prisons for years without due processing, suspicion is enough.

History is repeating itself.

And of course any critique against the U.S. government is considered 'anti-american', just like in the fifties.

 

Why doesn't USA invade Saudi Arabia? They are more totalitarian than anyone else in the middle-east. That's another double-standard of USA. Even Iran is more democratic than Saudi Arabia. But USA would never do anything against Saudis because they are their close allies. They have lots of investments in USA. A definition for totalitarianism:

I think USA and UK are becoming totalitarian too after seeing a few events recently and Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11. It seems Americans are living in fear watching each other if they are acting suspicious and government is also like "Big Brother" and encouraging people to watch each other.

My country is just north of Iraq and some people i have known have been carrying goods from/to there and nobody has heard Islamic-terrorist (though Muslims don't like this definition) groups before USA came there.

What should we call them? I don't know. I call them "terrorists who were normal people before USA came to Iraq".

BTW they are fighting each other more than fighting against USA. That should be considered as another success by USA. Now USA will sell weapons to both sides as in Iran-Iraq War before.

USA's objective was to gain wealth and create chaos in middle-east so: Mission completed.

 

Did anyone see Bush's latest verbal blunder in an interview with Katie Couric on Thursday night? He said:

LMAO. Yes, I can see how that would be difficult, now that the majority of Americans now realize there is no connection between the two. I can just see Bush's speach writers in the back room watching the interview. What were they thinking? "You idiot! You're supposed to know that, but you're not supposed to say that!"

 

What next? Perhaps they weren't nazis and communists really, but fascist neonazi-communist-terrorists?

 

OT: Can Bush be re-elected, has he done his time? Who will run for president in the coming election?

 

Short of changing the Constitution, no. The Constitution only allows a president to serve two full terms. The amendment of the Constitution to a two term limit was enacted after FDR was elected to four consecutive terms, prior to and during WWII.

There's a bit of irony with that too. It was Republicans that really pushed for the two term limit, as FDR was a democrat. In the 60 or so years since that amendment was enacted, four presidents have won two terms and could have benefitted if they were allowed to serve a third: Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II. Three of those four are Republican.

That's an excellent question, and there is no clear concensus at this point who the leading canidates will be. I can give you a list of who will likely run, but it's much too early to pick which two canidates will actually get nominated.

For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton almost certainly will run. I also expect that Joe Biden will run again, and quite possibly Wesley Clark. I'm sure others will throw their hat into the ring as well.

The Republicans are truly mysterious at this point, as so many of the leading Republicans have some scandal attached to their name, and therefore aren't the best choices. None of the usual suspects have any intention of running. Cheney has said he doesn't want to, Frist has repeatedly said he has no interest, and DeLay is more interested in keeping himself out of the big house than getting into the White House. My bet would be Dennis Hastert (current Speaker of the House) is pretty clean as far as I know, and there's always the possibility of a Republican governor running as well. (The list of presidents who were governors previously is long.)

 

I kind of think the Republicans may be screwed with the all powerful "base" for the next Presidential election. I can't see many "values voters" pulling the lever for McCain (affair, divorce), former Speaker Newt Gingrich (affair, divorce, affair, divorce), or Rudy Giuliani (divorce, affair, nasty divorce). They've got to be the most maritally challenged bunch of presidential hopefuls in our history, yet they top nearly every national poll of potential GOP candidates. The campaign season will be nothing if not interesting.

I think this'll actually be a good thing. Since it would be phenominally hypocritical for any of these men to campaign on "values" and/or to attack the personal lives of their opponants, they may actually have to campaign on the issues. Oh, the humanity.